"The secret of genius is to carry the spirit of the child into old age, which means never losing your enthusiasm." ~ Aldous Leonard Huxley
Like anything else I do lately….Saturday was a last minute adventure. I was not going to go out. I was staying home and getting some of the things on my must do list done….. gotta do them….right? Well a late night call from Jim F. (I swear he offered me candy and a late morning departure) and I gotta do them next week cause I am diving this week.
I hand out candy to all the little kiddies and pile my gear in the front hall for morning, setting my alarm clock for 6:00am, giving me plenty of time to load up, stop for coffee and doughnuts for everyone and make the boat with time to spare to load on for 7:30. What a good plan…..except about 6:30 my phone rings and it is Jim, “Are you coming?” ….turns out some miscommunication regarding loading time….my bad….. (but, as it turns out the later start was so enticing it will happen NEXT week.)
Luckily I live close and make it well before the planned departure…..Thank you Steve for thinking of me!
As I arrive and load on, with no coffee by the way, there is even more time to spare as some work is being done upon the electronics. Shortly, the Captain, with a huge grin on his face and a Woot! Woot!, is throwing the radar unit off the bridge and into the bay. This will be an interesting day. My boat mates are Steve R., Al S., Mr. October aka Al G., Jim F. and our mate Renee. And let us not forget Capt Tony in high spirits this fine morning.
The air is a bit brisk and as we head out there is a bit of ……chop ……yes…. chop to the water. As we head farther out it becomes “chop with an attitude”.
Our destination is the Ida K and I am excited as this is a site I have not been to. The Ida K was originally a 118 foot WWII sub chaser, brought to Pt Pleasant in 1977 to serve as a trawler and scallop boat as she neared the end of her life. She was deliberately sunk by her owners in 1978 or 79 in 90 fsw and makes for an interesting dive as it is a debris field of pieces of metal sheathed hull, propeller shaft, rudder, large box shaped tanks and other interesting shapes along with some added goodies of porcelain and trash can nature.
Al and I buddy up again and head on over into the water. There is the chop to deal with along with a surface current and a bit of wind……all in different directions. Grannylines, tag lines and tows to the ladder were the order for the day here. We make our way to the anchor line and drop on down. Below the surface is our playground and lucky children we are. As Al ties his reel in, 30 foot of visibility and 57 degree water temps, added to being tied directly to a large piece of the wreckage with little fish and other play friends, sends me into a fish poking AAD frenzy similar to turning a 3 year old loose in FAO Schwartz at Christmas. He soon has me focused on the tasks at hand and off we go in search of lobster for Al and more poking for me.
We swim past the large square tanks which used to hold fuel for the vessel and I corralled a few small swimmy guys in the corner of the tank only to have them escape. There are starfish and clams littering the bottom as we move along and soon we are heading off into the sand to some of the “added features”. Arriving at a 30 gallon trash can with wheels, (who needs a rolling trash can at sea, that’s just crazy) a clawed inhabitant is spotted hiding waaay in the back. I go round to see if a lift and dump is possible….it is not and Al is shaking his head as he just squeezes himself in and comes out with a new friend for his goody bag.Farther along some porcelain holds Als attention, but a tire not far off looks promising to me and I move over to have a look. There are no fish to be found, and I know that because I had to move a 1 ½ lb lobster out of the way to look. Taking pity on me, or is it the loster I am using to poke around with, Al opens his bag and offers transport.
We look around a bit more and I spy one more set of antennae and stick my hand in only to come out in the end with a hole in my glove. I give the hand off sign to Al and he goes in for the score, finally coming up with a marginally sized little guy who he lets go. Me? I have a bone to pick with this guy….dive gloves don’t come cheap! And smack fest begins with he and I battling it out to the death. Al grabs Mr. Shortie and tosses him towards his hole, now pointing to his gauges……it is time to go and we turn and head for the line.
As Al goes up, I signal that I will stay a little longer poking around the tie in for a bit longer with the last of the other divers. Looking under and about I follow the line of debris grabbing at a tail or two and finding a nice addition for my shell bucket and safely tucking it away.
Soon it is time to go up and as I hang, I remember the less than perfect surface and hope I can manage the ladder in my doubles…what was I thinking? Singles…should have brought singles…. Oh well.
The ladder was a task, at least for me, and it took a few minutes to maneuver but I made it and we were soon all on board and ready to move inshore a bit for dive # 2. Seems it was a tad rambunctious on the surface while we were gone. Water came splashing over the gunwales and things in the cabin got thrown about including my glasses which hid in fear for their lives thus getting trampled anyway coming out of things in 2 pieces. Better them than me this time.
The vote was taken and we were on our way to the Delaware, another new wreck for me, this trip was a home run of newbies for me.
On her last complete voyage, the Delaware came upon the foundering steamer Benefactor and towed her to safety at Red Hook, NJ before continuing on to her home berth. How ironic.
The Delaware was a 250 ft Steamer carrying passengers and crew totaling 66. In July of 1898, about 10pm, a fire was discovered below deck the crew attempted to put it out with little luck as the fire raged ahead of them and the passengers were awakened and put on deck for the life boats as signal flares were launched. The abandon ship was done in text book fashion with all women and children in the first life boat and a female stewardess as officer in charge. While two Cuban male passengers tried to take flight in the first boat they were promptly rebuffed by the captain and made to wait til the last life boat for their efforts. 4 of the 5 lifeboats were lowered into the water safely and the last remained on deck, unreachable for the flames. The captain and remaining crew lashed hatch covers together in makeshift rafts and lowered them to the water. Two of the lifeboats had hung behind for them and towed them safely away from the burning ship.
In heavy surf, the Coastguard station launched a lifeboat which rowed out the 5 miles to the vessel in remarkably swift fashion, just an hours time, taking on passengers from the smaller boats. Two additional tugs came to the rescue picking up the remaining passengers and crew.
The next morning the Delaware was just about burned to the water line but still afloat and salvage was attempted with the effort being abandoned within site of the shore off Bay Head in just 75 feet of water.
It is said that along with her cargo of nails, soda bottles, olive jars and dry goods, including pipes and buttons, there was a load of ammunition which exploded like fireworks according to the passengers and crew as they awaited rescue. The steamship line rebukes this and claims they were mistaken and distraught and there was no ammunition although bullets are among the treasures to be found if you dig around. They also claim there is a strongbox, containing $250,000.00, still among the buried artifacts and not yet found. Hmmmm
The seas calmed to almost flat here and only the anchor line was needed. We rolled over and dropped down. What we picked up in calming seas we lost in visibility as the water turned a hazy gray green and heavy particulate filled the 15-20 foot of viz surrounding us. We were tied in to a tall boiler and set out to explore with more sea bass on this wreck but no lobster to be found.
We swam about looking in and under things but unfortunately took no time to dig. I collected a variety of weights, square, pyramid and teardrop shaped and put them in my pocket to add to the captain’s collection. The water was oddly cooler here at just 55 F and soon our time to surface came around and up we went, one by one, divers surfacing tired and wet form the day. Yes my left sleeve was a little damp still…so the valve shall be looked at much more closely this time. I had been told once it was not a matter of IF my drysuit would leak…just a matter of WHEN….oh well.
We offloaded to the dock some very nice fresh fish and several lobster. While mine was of a healthy size, I believe Jim’s fat blob of a lobster done squished him in the cooler and an immediate lunch of steamed lobster was necessary. Gracious…..how awful…..Can you imagine!